Just recently I got back into LEGO Castles, and have picked up a lot of sets from the new line. This got me thinking, I should rebuild some of the castles and medieval things I had as a kid! Well, I started doing a bit of digging in my old LEGO bins, and found the base plates for 6081 King's Mountain Fortress and 6090 Royal Knight's Castle. As I was seeing way more grey walls than black walls, I figured I'd start with King's Mountain Fortress.

Well, it took me three days of digging in three large bins of LEGO pieces, dating from the mid-to-late 80's and up to a couple early Star Wars sets, but I finally found all but 20 pieces of the castle. Only a couple pieces were structural, mainly the mechanism for the drawbridge, a 1x6x1 arch, and an inverted corner slope. The rest are accessory pieces - Minifig armor, shields, a visor, some flags, and the little black bird at the top. I've put in Bricklink orders for replacements, and I'm just waiting for their arrival now.

Once I had found all these parts though, they were filthy. They've been in a big plastic tub and two cardboard boxes for the last 20 years, in a room with zero climate control, in Florida. I don't even want to start to imagine what some of that dirt was, but I let them soak for a good 12-16 hours or so in soapy water and then used an old soft toothbrush to scrub them clean, rinsed them off, and let them dry.

I'll admit as well, there's a lot of discoloration on many of the parts. That yellow tone we're all used to seeing, and frequently not very evenly spread. In fact, the white horse with the red barding has been wearing that barding for the last 24 years and let me tell you, he has one wicked farmer's tan going on. I know there are ways to treat the pieces to reduce the yellowing, but at the moment, I'm more interested in building the castle than I am in messing with chemicals. So, it will be rebuilt and I'll do my best to hide sharp changes in coloration, but hey, stone is irregular. So for the time being, my castle will be yellowed in many places. I have no idea how the yellowing treatments react with part printing, either, so that worries me.

I don't have any pictures at the moment, but I plan to take some as I rebuild, and of course once the castle is completed. I'm considering starting reconstruction before the bricklink orders come in, but we'll have to see if I get too anxious to start or if patience wins out. My money wouldn't be on patience, however.

EDIT

Okay, so I got the castle built, the images uploaded, and now it's just a waiting game for Bricklink orders. Here's the album with the pictures I took, you can tell some things are missing, but that's okay with me.

Actually, this is one of my favorite castles as well. Perhaps it's just nostalgia as it was my first castle. The Queen, ghost, and the black bird (I like to think of it as a raven) really add a lot to this set. It seemed giant at the time, but now it seems pretty small compared to the other Castles. In a way it's kind of beautiful for its simplicity.

Nice job getting it back together and good job on getting everything all cleaned up. That's important too.

Hi Serow . I'm impressed laddie . Takes much determination to rebuild an old castle. I hope to build a small but functional castle one day with my limited LEGO blocks. Meantime , I'll try to design and build a realistic OUTLAW stronghold. Ciao .

Daffyd ap Owenaim small miss small , live in the moment... Outlaws [ Wolf Clan]